Thomas Lincoln Chadbourne (March 21, 1871 – June 15, 1938) was an American lawyer who played a key role in the establishment of multinational corporations during the 1920s and undertook efforts to restore commodity prices, particularly in the sugar industry, after their collapses during the Great Depression.

He had amassed a fortune and was regarded by some contemporaries as a "radical capitalist" for his views on profit sharing and recognition of collective bargaining rights.

"[3] He is described as a rambunctious youth who ran away from home at age three before he was expelled from a series of schools throughout his young life as a "bad influence.

His father left him at the train station bound for Chicago with $150 and the advice that he was "not fitted for a profession or any other work in life that calls for mental effort" and should go into manual labor.

[8] Despite never attending law school, Chadbourne's training under Judge Wing left him well prepared for the state bar exam, which he passed with a ranking of two out of 35.

Chadbourne represented some of the largest firms in the world in a period of globalization during the 1920s during which multi-national corporations began to be established in significant numbers.

If we think the people who are running the industries of this world can by reason of greed bring about such a depression as this and not take steps to mend it, no matter what sacrifice may be to individuals, we are mistaken.

Chadbourne planned additional negotiations with countries that consumed but produced little to no sugar in an attempt to stop them from entering the market, including the United Kingdom, France, Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Japan.

Among these, some observers recognized a need to restore prices even at the expense of consumers, but others condemned the practice as protecting domestic business profits and exacerbating public hardship.

However, despite successfully limiting production among signatories, Chadbourne was unable to effect a return to pre-Depression prices because US producers increased cultivation and continued to flood the market.

Citing inadequate means to compel other farmers to adhere to quotas, US producers had already refused to accept production caps proposed by Chadbourne.

Congress and the Franklin Roosevelt administration would respond to the ongoing crisis by adopting such compulsory measures, along with subsidies for farmers leaving land uncultivated, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and Jones–Costigan amendment of 1934.

Responding to the crisis of the Great Depression, Chadbourne asserted that the capitalist system itself was "on trial" (see above) and argued for the need for intervention by industrialists to curb the downturn.

Our production, farm and factory, has been developed to a point where it is from ten to twenty per cent in excess of domestic demand, and any failure to find foreign markets for this surplus means the dislocation of our whole industrial establishment.